


until the night fades

by President Romana (asoldandtrueasthesky)



Category: Gallifrey (Big Finish Audio)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-24
Updated: 2016-12-24
Packaged: 2018-09-11 18:27:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,242
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9001594
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/asoldandtrueasthesky/pseuds/President%20Romana
Summary: Written for the classicwhosecretsanta 2016. Narvin and Leela explore the Axis together, still reeling from the loss of Braxiatel and dealing with a moping President. The Gallifrey they find feels too much like home for Leela to abandon and it's up to Narvin to prevent their group from splintering any further.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [colinbakerstreet](https://archiveofourown.org/users/colinbakerstreet/gifts).



After countless Gallifreys filled with unscrupulous politics, twisted laws and an unhealthy amount of near death experiences, it should have been a relief to find an empty planet but it did have one rather large problem. Namely, the weather.

He supposed it couldn’t quite be called a blizzard but the ground was layered in frost and their breath visibly coalesced in the air and that was cold enough for him. For a moment, he regretted not issuing a winter version of the uniform, one with more layers, but if he’d had something warmer he’d have been honour bound to offer it to Leela- her outfit didn’t even have _sleeves_. He shivered at the thought.

“It is not cold, Narvin, there is no need to tremble,” she said, “it is _brisk_.”

“The panopticon when the automated heater isn’t on is _brisk_. This is risking pneumonia.”

Ignoring his complaints, Leela took a deep breath of air, finding it refreshing in a way the dead air of the Axis would never be. “At least it is fresh.” She could feel the grass crunching beneath her feet, something halfway between frost and ice and snow; she could almost imagine the swathes of red grass capped with an icy sheet and silver leaves frozen to white. “It is an improvement on your panopticon.”

“Surely you can’t be suggesting we stay _here_.” Narvin said, sounding like he very much feared that it was exactly what she was suggesting. “We need a capitol and space travel at the very least, not to mention weather control.”

“We would survive without your comforts. Is our quest not to find a peaceful land?”

“Our mission is to find a _home_. Besides, we’d all be out of jobs.”  

“There is more to life than work, Narvin.” Leela grinned. “Time Lords with no time. You would have to change the name. Is that what you are concerned about? There are other things you could claim Lordship over- petty rules, timetables, bureau-cracy.”

“We would not. It’s more than having a TARDIS, Leela, it’s in our every gene, every atom of artron energy.”

She considered it for a moment before nodding. “It is in your blood. That I can understand. The thrill of the hunt and the fight, that is what runs in mine.”

“Sounds like Pandora’s society would have been perfect for you. Plenty of chaos.”

Leela turned on him, lit by sudden anger, as quick and hot as wildfire. “I am not cruel, Narvin. You see the wild and call it savage, the wild sees you and calls you weak.”

He merely raised an eyebrow. “Does it? I’ve never heard the winds speak.”

“If they had anything to say you would not hear it, you are as deaf as I am blind.”

He sighed, walking back the way he’d came. “I’m going back to the Axis before I regenerate from this weather. Feel free to freeze to death.”

Leela crossed her arms, unmoving as she listened to his retreating footsteps.

Narvin hesitated. “Look, you know I can’t leave you here. Romana would skin me alive.”

“That is not my problem. You can tell her I do not need defending and that I will see this place for myself. If not your home, it could be mine.”

Narvin watched her slip off into the trees, hoping it was a bluff. The downside of being a Time Lord was it really was in his blood- or at least entrenched somewhere in his mind- and he could feel every second tick by, every microspan setting him more and more on edge.

He soon gave up and hurried into the trees, hoping he didn’t end up lost in the dark and the cold. He was sure K-9 was capable of finding life signs on a desolate planet but being saved by a metal dog would destroy what was left of his dignity.

Eventually, he spotted her silhouette up ahead and rushed to catch up with her until he nearly tripped over his robes. The black trail had always been something of a liability, he thought, coming to an exhausted stop several feet behind Leela. She took no notice of his exhaustion, keeping her steady pace.

“Can’t you slow down?”

“I did not ask you to follow me.”

“If I go back and say you’ve decided to leave us for some icy wilderness because I hurt your feelings, my death really isn’t an exaggeration.”

Leela snorted. “Your words have never pierced my skin, if they had you’d have known the cool of my blade long ago.”

“Then it _is_ Romana.”

“I am not avoiding her.”

“If I’m not the problem then who else could it be?”

“She is not a _problem_.”

“Then why are you running away?”

She stopped. “I am not running away! This place, these forests, they remind me of my own even if the plants are silver and alien and the animals strange and mutated. They are something I know, that I can fight, not like your words and politics and voids that swallow friends!”

Narvin blinked. “For someone who can’t so much as pierce your skin, I seem rather adept at provoking you.”

Leela pulled her knife from its sheath and then stopped. She turned away, teeth gritted with frustration. Narvin wisely stayed silent. “I am not the same as I was and you can make angry, are you happy now? Leave me alone, Narvin.”

He faltered for a moment before running after her.

“Can you not understand my words?”  

“We can look around this Gallifrey together, if you want.”

“Because you do not trust me to walk on my own?”

“Because I don’t want to go back right now either. Not when my President is too busy having a crisis of confidence to lead, not when every Gallifrey we find is worse than the one we left behind… not when there are voids that swallow friends.”

Leela watched him for several long moments. “It will be cold.”

“I rather think I’m more appropriately dressed for the weather than you.”

She frowned. “We need wood for a fire.”

“I can do that. What will you be doing?”

“Finding food.”

Narvin watched her leave before he sighed and got to his knees to find wood, wishing he was back in the warmth and cleanliness of the Axis. He became so engrossed in the repetitive task, he almost didn’t notice her return. 

Leela picked over the wood he’d collected, looking it over critically. “This wood is good.” She said, a note of surprise in her voice.

“I was a field agent for several decades, I have had basic survivalist training. What did you get?”

Leela opened the pouch around her waist to reveal fistfuls of berries.

“I could have handled that.”

Leela busied herself with arranging the branches into a suitable mound while Narvin struck up a flame. “You’d have poisoned us.”

He frowned, stepping away from the growing flames. “Well. No one really bothered with herbology at the Academy.”

“Was there anything you did bother with?”

“Physics. Maths.”

“That is no use out here.”

“All the more reason to find a Gallifrey with more than just pigrats, as plague free as they might be.”

“But we cannot go on as we are. Romana sits in the Axis and does nothing and you reject every Gallifrey the moment we step foot in it.” Leela said as she offered him a handful of berries.

He took them and settled down on the floor, trying not to think of how ruined his white uniform would be. “And your solution is to leave us and live as a savage again?”

“I have not said that!”

He sighed. “It’s not my fault the Madam President is too busy moping to do anything, at least I’m _trying_.”

“She is not moping. She has lost much, as have I.”

“And I haven’t?” Narvin demanded. “I’ve lost my future. All of it. But I suppose it seems like nothing to you. You’re used to it.”

“I understand better than Romana ever will.”

“You’ve only ever had one life to lose.”

“Exactly. You are mortal and scared of it. Romana has many faces left to wear and has never been afraid of dying.”

“And you are?” he asked, sceptical.

“I am no coward. I do not fear battle or a noble death but I know what it is like to feel fragile next to those who can go into the never-ending darkness and then breathe again.”

Narvin fell silent for a while, long enough that Leela had almost lost the thread of conversation. “You’re not fragile. One of my cousins wouldn’t go within ten feet of a tree for fear it might fall on him. As an agent, you’d be worth thirteen of him.”

Leela turned her head in surprise, a hint of a smile on her lips. “Careful, Narvin. That almost sounded like a compliment.”

“Take it how you wish. I may not be kind, but I’m honest.”

“Honest?”

“Most of the time.”

Leela laughed and leant back on to the frosted grass, face turned up to the sky. “What does the sky look like?”

Narvin blinked. “The sky?”

“Is it the same?”

Narvin laid down next to her. If he ignored the dampness and the way the grass itched uncomfortably at his neck, it was almost comfortable. “It has the same amount of moons. Pazithi Gallifreya. The same constellations.”

“You did not say it is the same.”

“It isn’t.”

“My world had only one moon. It had no partner to dance around the sky with and it was distant, the seas were calm. Where are Gallifreys seas and oceans?”

“Underground, mostly. Probably.” At Leela’s look he shrugged. “No one paid attention in Geography. The Citadel _is_ Gallifrey, to me.”

“Ah. _That_ is why you would not stay here.”

“It doesn’t feel like my home. Is that a nobler reason than wanting weather control and temporal technology?”

“It is one I can understand.” They lapsed into silence once again until Leela asked, “Did you look up at your moons?”

“I suppose, from time to time.”

“Didn’t you ever wonder what was out there?”

“I was more concerned with what was happening on Gallifrey. I knew aliens were out there, I didn’t have to wonder.”

“You chose to police aliens for a job.”

“I wasn’t driven by curiosity.”

“What, then?”

“Duty and circumstance. I suppose you did.”

“What?”

“Looked up at the sky and wondered.”

“Yes,” Leela said softly. “I knew nothing of other peoples, I barely knew of other tribes. But I did know there must be a reason for orbs of light in the sky and a ball of heat and fire that rose and set like clockwork. I knew there was more to life than what the elders spoke of, I knew it from the feeling in my bones and the whispers of the wind in the trees. I wanted answers, more than the rest of my people. They were content to listen to the lies of a power-mad computer and take its word as the truth.”

“Would you have stayed, if you’d known? That the moon and stars and suns and all other natural phenomena could be explained, that wonders of the Universe could be bared down to maths? If you knew that the other peoples of the Universe wouldn’t welcome you?”

“Of course not. Your science will never explain everything and I have lived longer than I ever would have had I stayed- not in time, in experiences. I knew there would be a price to pay when I followed the Doctor.”

Narvin frowned. “But you can never return to your home and you evidently don’t see Gallifrey as yours. You’re trapped with _me_ , in a cycle of worlds that must all seem equally alien to you.”

Leela turned her attention away from stars she couldn’t see. “You regret following Romana here. You miss _your_ Gallifrey.”

“I knew there’d be a price to pay.” He said, a deep weariness in his voice. “My duty lies here now. Not with Matthias, not with my agency...With you and Romana.”

“As does mine.”

“You’re ready to return to our Madam President then?”

“I will not run off into a forest that is not my own. But can we stay here for a while longer? Until the night fades?”

Narvin settled his head on the damp earth, surrendering to the hum of the Universe, the song of the time vortex, something Leela would never hear and letting it drown out his uncertainty. Even here he could feel it ripped open miles above them, forever leaking echoes of the past and the future and everything in between, its vastness both comforting and terrifying.

When Leela brushed against his robe, to ground herself in a world of silence and noise, he didn’t flinch away. Instead, he offered her his hand. “Contact?”

“That is a Time Lord thing.” 

“I think I can still show you what I see.”

She took his hand and he focused, letting the images flood into her mind, trying not to overwhelm her.

Leela smiled. The sky was beautiful, yes, but no more than any other night sky she had seen. The difference was it was coloured with his perception, his associations, a snapshot of his thoughts, of himself. “You know, Narvin, I think you might know more than just Physics and Maths.”

He drew his hand away. “Perhaps a little more.”


End file.
